MP005

When you went through the UT site to claim your fin aid, did you choose someone for the private loans or just click to do it later? I can't decide who to use yet, but want to go ahead and claim the aid thing...?

I started filling it out and then quit when I came to that part. I'm pretty sure that you have to do the entire thing for it to be considered final. Personally, I'm deciding between Access group and the UT student thing. I haven't taken the time to look at either one, yet, but I have heard people speak highly of both.

Are you talking about applying for the non-Stafford loans? Because I don't think we have to apply for the Stafford loans. I thought that was the purpose of the FAFSA.

Frankly, I didn't know we had to apply for the non-Stafford loans either. But maybe I am in the dark. I thought that the FAFSA took care of all of that.

I don't know. I have never had to take out non-Stafford loans before. My SO never had to apply seperately for any of his private loans (that were still considered educational loans) at UT's medical school.

We should post a thread about this on the UT discussion board. I think I will do that.

That's right, you *generally* don't have to apply for Stafford loans. The money comes from the government, and get disbursed through the school. The problem with this, though, is that you're going to get about $550 less each year because of origination fees ... unless you get it through a different lender. Accessgroup, for example, doesn't charge origination fees, but does have something called a guarantor fee. I think citibank might be origination-fee-less, but not sure. Check out northstar.org, a non-profit lending agency.